Canzoneri? After you put Billy Petrole away at the stadium last month, I don't see how they can deny you.'
'You spoiled my surprise, Mr. Ness,' Barney grinned, 'I haven't told Nate yet, 'cause we won't get the contracts back signed and sealed till this afternoon. But I put my John Henry down a couple days ago. I'm getting my title shot.'
I said, 'Barney, that's great. When's it set for?'
'June. Gonna take advantage of those world's fair crowds.'
'That's just great, Barney.'
'I'll have tickets for you guys if you want 'em. I hope you both'll be there.'
Eliot said. 'Try and stop us.' and raised his mug of beer in a toast.
Barney turned to me. 'Can I get you a beer or something? Help me celebrate a little?'
'No thanks, champ. I got to testify in half an hour.'
Eliot looked at his watch. 'That's right.' He drained the beer. 'Let's 20.'
Near the Bismarck there was a parking lot. where Eliot left his government Ford, and we walked over to City Hall, half of which was the County Building, where the courtroom was. The day was cloudy and in the lower forties, windy enough to be chilly; a light rain fell. We walked with our heads lowered and our hands dug in our raincoat pockets.
'Eliot,' I said.
'Yeah?'
'This prosecutor.'
'Charley, you mean?'
'You just answered my question.'
'What question?'
'I've just been wondering if the prosecutor was a friend of yours, that's all.'
He pretended not to get my drift.
But before we went in the building, I stopped him, put a hand on his arm and we stood in the rain, close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath.
'I know you got my best interests at heart,' I said.
'Yeah,'but'...'
I grinned. 'No 'buts' about it. I know you got my best interests at heart. Thanks, Eliot.'
He grinned back. 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about.'
Eliot sat next to me in the courtroom, and that made Lang, a couple rows up, nervous. He kept craning his neck around to look at us, a vaguely desperate look on his face. He'd brought some of the nervousness along with him, apparently, as he'd also brought his lawyer, who sat next to him- the same dapper little fat attorney who'd come to that ditch in the Indiana dunes to identify the body of Ted Newberry, back in January- and who noticed Lang turning to look at me and stopped him doing it.
But Miller, sitting on the other side of Lang, wondering what his partner was looking at. turned and looked at us, too, and seemed similarly disturbed.
I hadn't had any contact with either of them since Nitti got his continuance, in this same courtroom, a few weeks before. No threatening phone calls or bribes or confrontations. Not that I had expected them to try anything. They probably wouldn't have risked doing anything to me themselves, at this point; and as far as I knew the only gang affiliation they had was with the Newberry/Moran group, who weren't much of a threat to anybody these days, many of their various members having defected to sign up with other factions, primarily the major one: Nitti's. But I'd been sleeping with my gun under my pillow just the same.
Besides, for all they knew I might get on the stand and tell the story they wanted me to.
The judge came in, and we all rose, and, despite his lawyer's admonitions, Lang turned and looked at me again, and I winked at him, like Cermak did at Roosevelt.
And Lang was the first witness called.
He walked to the stand and as he passed Nitti, Nitti muttered something, presumably nasty. It wasn't loud enough for the judge to rap his gavel and reprimand Nitti- but it was plenty to unnerve Lang another notch. He took the stand and, after the prosecutor had asked a few perfunctory questions to establish the legality of entering the office at the Wacker-LaSalle without a warrant. Nitti's lawyer rose from the defense table and approached the bald cop.
'Who shot you?'
Lang looked at me.
'Who shot you. Sergeant Lang?'
The answer to that question, of course, was supposed to be. 'Frank Nitti.'
But Lana said. 'I don't know who shot me.'
Over at the prosecution table, the prosecutor jumped to his feet, as did several associates of his. and a wave of surprise- noisy surprise rolled over the courtroom. Several people stood; one of them was Miller. His fists were clenched, and he said, 'Dirty son of a bitch.'
The judge rapped his gavel, and everybody shut up, or anyway kept it down; the jury sat looking at each other, wondering if all trials were like this.
